und now, and
I'll admit you."

By the time Cutbill had reached the entrance, Jack had succeeded in
opening the massive doors; and as he flung them wide, a flood of light
poured into the little crypt, with its splendid altar and its silver
lamps; its floor of tessellated marble, and its ceiling a mass of gilded
tracery almost too bright to look on: but it was not at the glittering
splendor of gold or gems that they now stood enraptured. It was in
speechless wonderment of the picture that formed the altar-piece, which
was a Madonna,--a perfect copy, in every lineament and line, of the
Flora at Castello. Save that an expression of ecstatic rapture
had replaced the look of joyous delight, they were the same, and
unquestionably were derived from the same original.

"Do you know that?" cried Cutbill.

"Know it! Why, it's our own fresco at Castello."

"And by the same hand, too," cried Cutbill. "Here are the initials in
the corner,--G. L.! Of all the strange things that I have ever met in
life, this is the strangest!" And he leaned on the railing of the altar,
and gazed on the picture with intense interest.

"I can make nothing of it," muttered Jack.

"And yet there 's a great story in it," said Cutbill, in a low, serious
tone. "That picture was a portrait,--a portrait of the painter's
daughter; and that painter's daughter was the wife of your grandfather,
Montague Bramleigh; and it is her grandchild now, the man called
Pracontal, who claims your estates."

"How do you pretend to know all this?"

"I know it, chapter and verse. I have gone over the whole history with
that old painter's journal before me. I have seen several studies of
that girl's face,--'Enrichetta Lami,' she was called,--and I have read
the entry of her marriage with your grandfather in the parish register.
A terrible fact for your poor brother, for it clenches his ruin. Was
there ever as singular a chance in life as the reappearance of this face
here?"

"Coming as though to taunt us with our downfall; though certainly that
lovely brow and those tearful eyes have no scorn in them. She must have
been a great beauty."

"Pracontal raves of her beauty, and says that none of these pictures do
her justice, except one at Urbino. At least, he gathers this from the
journal, which he swears by as if it were gospel."

"I 'd call her handsomer in that picture than in our fresco. I wonder if
this were painted earlier or later?"

"I can answer that question,